


A Fragment

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Banter, F/M, First Time, Introspection, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:30:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In the moments after, everything seemed abnormally quiet...</i> A fragment of something much larger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fragment

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the dumps tonight, so I'm making myself feel productive by posting a context-less scene from a much longer, as yet unfinished, reunion fic. ♥

In the moments after, everything seemed abnormally quiet, and with her eyes closed and Jack’s forehead on hers, Phryne’s senses felt tuned to an almost painful peak of consciousness. Never in all of her experiences with lovers far and wide had she ever been so very _aware_ of a man’s body. He was still hard and straining inside her, but even more than that simple joining, she could feel him. She could feel, through his chest pressed to her, the sensation of Jack’s heart thudding slowly to rest, in her skull, in her veins, in all her most vulnerable places. All the muscles of his solid frame weighed her down against the soft mattress, and her skin could denote each inch of his, every contour, every hair and scar and birthmark. His very breath in her mouth tasted, namelessly, undeniably, of him.

When he would have moved, Phryne held onto him, digging her nails into his back and clinging to his lips. “No! No… Don’t go, Jack.”

“I’m not too heavy?”

He nearly was; he had all but collapsed on her after his climax, and she could scarcely breathe. But she was far from feeling restrained or trapped by his weight pressing her into the bed. “Never.” She carded her fingers through his hair, smiling at how absurdly boyish he looked when the thick brown curls were set free from their normally restrained side-part. “But… could you shift a little?”

Jack obligingly shifted his weight back onto his knees. “Oh,” Phryne gasped as the air rushed back into her lungs. “Much better!”

“Good.” His smile was the slight, slow one that tugged the most at all of Phryne’s gentler feelings, and the dark need had gone from his eyes, leaving them softly blue and slightly sleepy. Phryne saw in them everything she felt for Jack, reflected back at her in kind. Then, after a few seconds of falling into one another, Jack’s smile began to widen. “You seemed almost as desperate as I was.”

“It was a very dry London season,” said Phryne, in a tone to match.

“Oh? No seductions to relate, Miss Fisher? No conquests?”

“I could’ve had several, but it wouldn’t have been fair to those enamored young men. The flesh was willing – very willing – but the heart was… elsewhere.” She sounded almost shy, making that confession, and Jack’s eyes were suddenly very bright.

“I am… very glad to see you, Phryne,” he said huskily. “For obvious reasons. And because I need your help.”

“That’s my second favorite phrase, coming from you.”

“…And the first?”

She smiled knowingly and placed her lips very close to his ear. “‘Do it again.’” Jack growled low in his chest and licked a stripe from her collarbone to her jaw. Phryne gasped out a laugh. “Tell me about the case.”

“…What, now?”

“No time like the present! Unless you think you’re ready again so soon?”

He froze for a second or two and then raised his head to glare at her with a familiar expression of fond exasperation. “Do you want to know how long it’s been since I had a woman in my bed?”

“Not really.” Phryne made a sympathetic face and groaned theatrically. “I’m not sure I could _cope_ with thinking about going without for… what I assume was a considerable length of time?”

“Considerable. So when you say, ‘If you _think_ you’re ready’…” He did something with his hips that momentarily took away Phryne’s ability to speak.

She scraped her fingernails down the length of his ribs, making Jack shiver and twitch irritably inside her. “Point taken, Inspector,” she purred, quirking her eyebrows in anticipation.

“Now,” she asked sleepily, some time later – much, _much_ later, “what exactly is this case that brought you halfway round the world under an assumed name?”

“In the morning, Phryne,” Jack murmured.

She lifted her head from its comfortable spot on his chest. “Why not now?”

“Because I don’t know what time it is, and because I can’t feel my legs, and because that felt nice.” He twined his fingers into her jetty hair and gently tugged her back down.

Phryne resumed her spot without complaint. “You could still tell me about the case.”

“I could. Or I could go to sleep. I had a long and frustrating day before you turned up, and so far my evening hasn’t been precisely relaxing. Not that I’m complaining, mind you… And,” he continued, correctly reading her scowl, “if you call me a wet blanket I will throw you out into the corridor with nothing _but_ a blanket.”

“You wouldn't dare—” Jack suddenly scooped her up, naked as the day she was born, got out of bed and started to carry her to the door. Phryne let out a little shriek. “All right!” she laughed. “You’re an evil man, Jack Robinson – and I’ve missed you desperately.”

He carried her back to bed, with Phryne’s arms twined round his neck and her pale eyes gazing up at him adoringly. She curled up under his arm and snuggled her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder, and they slept. It was the first time in months, since well before she had left Australia, that she had fallen asleep with someone else in her bed, literally in someone’s arms, and it was the best night’s rest she’d had since… _Since realizing I loved him,_ she admitted, as she woke reluctantly, some hours later, with the sun shining through her cabin window and right into her face.

She stumbled, rather inelegantly, to the porthole to draw the blinds, which had been open all night. Thankfully, they were much too high off the deck for anyone to have gotten an eyeful as they walked by.

Wrapping her body in a silk dressing down, Phryne reclaimed her spot in bed, intending to kiss Jack awake for the pleasure of listening to him grumble at her. But instead, she found herself captivated by his face. She had seen him asleep before, but never quite like this. All the hard, stern lines of his face were relaxed and peaceful. His brow was unfurrowed, his jaw was loose, and his head was tilted to one side on his pillow so that she could see his oddly pale eyelashes fluttering gently as he breathed.

“What is it about you, Jack Robinson?” she whispered, almost inaudibly. “What makes you different from all the other men I’ve known?” His breathing changed tempo; Phryne froze for a second or two, but he did not wake, and she continued her musings in the safety of her thoughts.

Out of all the lovers she had ever had, why should it be this man to surpass them all? She’d had subjectively handsomer men, men more technically adept in the esoteric arts of the bedroom, men arguably more educated, more well-built, more adventurous and daring. But she could look back on them all without regret, without shame, and without missing them all that much. When had that changed?

Her partnership with Jack had always been one of seeming opposites, her pushing and him pulling. She had flirted with him as thoughtlessly as she breathed, hoping to someday find the crack in his dour exterior through which she could pull him into her world, if only for a night… But by the time that happened, he was too intertwined with her daily routines, with her professional life, to simply have him once and then send him on his way. He was too important to her to be one more lover. He cared for her, and she for him. And though there had been other men in the interlude between understanding and succumbing, none of them had ever stood a chance of dislodging the place Jack had taken, quietly and stubbornly, in her heart.

There might yet still be other men. But Phryne couldn’t imagine wanting anyone else the way she wanted Jack. It was a very strange thing for her to feel. She wasn’t at all sure if she liked it.

Jack breathed deeply, and his eyes fluttered open. “Stop staring at me, Phryne,” he smiled.

“I’m not staring, I’m contemplating mysteries.”

“What mysteries?”

“The shadow of your cheekbone. The line of your jaw. The sight of eternity in your lips and eyes. The bliss of your brow.”

“‘A very honest woman, but something given to lie.’” Jack reached up and cupped her cheek in his hand, smiling drowsily. “The mystery to me is that I fell asleep beside you, and now that I’m awake, you’re still here.”


End file.
